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Brew's Crew: Blood Brothers

Posted By:Byron Brewer

02/15/2012 - 6:48pm

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(Editor’s note: This is another in a series of irregularly-scheduled columns by Managing Editor Byron Brewer, mainly dealing with cosmic comics and their many denizens. Mr. Brewer’s opinions do not necessarily reflect that of CosmicBookNews.com. He welcomes both raves and opposing views.)

By Byron Brewer

Iron Man#55 started it all!

For those of us who enjoyed the era of Marvel Cosmic that was the playground of the talented Jim Starlin, the arrival of Drax and the Blood Brothers into the pages of Iron Man was it!

God love ”˜em, the Blood Brothers are large twin ape-like aliens originally in the service of the mad Titan Thanos, acting as the guardians of his first base on Earth. Pursued by Drax the Destroyer, the duo battle Iron Man and the Thing in a bid to stop them from interfering in Thanos' plans. When they fail to do so, Thanos teleports the Blood Brothers to an unrevealed location.

The bros reappear years later in the service of the villain the Controller (another Thanos thrall) and battle Iron Man once more. Iron Man defeats them both with the aid of Daredevil. Sometime later, the United Statesmilitary discovers Thanos' old Earth base in Arizonaand after activating some of the machinery accidentally teleportin the Blood Brothers! The two battle the Avengers and are eventually depowered by Thanos' brother, Starfox.

The Brothers are imprisoned but are later released by Quasar (thanks, Wendell!) and left on Mars. They later attempt to stop Rogue from rescuing a mutant extraterrestrial of the Skrull race. The brothers later fight alongside Earth's meta-humans against an invasion by Ego the Living Planet, but are (natch!) imprisoned with alien criminals Paibok the Power Skrull and Lunatik. The pair eventually escape and crash-land on Earth. They help enslave a small Alaskan town in an attempt to craft a space-worthy ship. This fails due to the intervention of Drax the Destroyer, wherein one brother is apparently killed! (From Starlin to DnA in four paragraphs!) The second bro survives and is later seen escaping the Raft, a floating prison for super-villains.

The surviving Blood Brother joins the Hood and his criminal empire, and helps fight the Skrulls during Secret Invasion. He joins the Hood's gang in an attack on the New Avengers at the Hellfire Club; they were expecting the Dark Avengers. He was also seen during the siege of Asgard as part of the Hood crime syndicate.

Our surviving bro is probably again in prison (on Earth), as was the fate of many of the Hood’s gang. How long before he is thrall to Thanos or another would-be crimelord? Stay tuned!